I have always loved reading. Sadly in the past decade I haven't set aside time to read on a regular basis. This all changed in 2008.

I made it one of my daily goals to read get in bed by 10pm and read for an hour before falling asleep. I accomplished that goal more times than not last year. In doing so I read 21 books.

As you will see in the list below, I read mostly non-fiction. This year I'm changing it up a little bit. I am reading one work of fiction and one non-fiction in parallel. I try and switch back and forth each night, but I've really been hooked on PHP 5 Objects, Patterns and Practices. I guess that says something about me that I find it more interesting than the other book I'm reading: The Vicar of Wakefield.

Here is an un-ordered list of the books I read last year, I likely forgot a few, but you get the idea:

An Empire of Their Own - After rediscovering my faith and interest in Judaism I starting reading everything I possibly could about it. This book, although not specifically about Judaism, covers the immigrant Jews who created Hollywood. Great read if you're interested in Jews, the motion picture industry or both.

Fast Food Nation - My wife read this book a few years ago and stopped eating beef and fowl that wasn't free-range, organic and grass-fed. I finally got around to reading it and I no longer eat beef or poultry that wasn't raised the way animals were intended to live: on an open range, eating grass and being happy. If you read this book you'll understand why. Basically, feeding herbivores meat, blood and guts from other animals or of their same species, is a horribly disgusting practice that has a wide range of frightening ramifications.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Judaism - Despite this series derogatory name, this book was actually really insightful and informative. Keep in mind though that it was written by an Orthodox rabbi so a large portion of it doesn't apply to people like myself who are Reform Jews. It was still very interesting to read.

#9: Homemade Bombs, From Richard Reid's Shoe to Kaczynski's Envelope - I wasn't sure to expect when I attended this Homeland Security trade show, but when I saw the simulated bombs I knew it would be interesting and controversial. When DHS gave me permission to shoot them I was really excited. Don't miss the comments on this gallery. Priceless.

#2: A Lesson in Internet Anatomy: The World's Densest Meet-Me Room - When I first toured One Wilshire 9 years ago I snuck in a camera and took some photos of the crazy cables in the Meet-Me-Room. This time around I was on assignment and took photos of the crazy cables in the Meet-Me-Room. One Wilshire is awesome.

#1: Inside NASA's Mars Mission
- This is my all time favorite gallery that I've shot for Wired. My editor ranked it as one of the year's best. Here is what he said about it: "Our best science photographer, Dave Bullock, toured the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex shortly before the Phoenix lander touched down on Mars. His photos show the calm before the storm, and his coverage of the landing and the lander's first images was excellent as well."

As I mentioned yesterday, I am going through all my Wired.com assignment archives and uploading my favorite shots, including never-before-published out-takes, in full resolution on flickr and my gallery. Here are a few shots from my tour of Paul Bellan's Plasma Lab at Caltech:

A high-speed camera peers into the vacuum chamber, awaiting plasma to form.

A lens magnifies the view inside the vacuum chamber at the Bellan Plasma lab at Caltech.

Caltech graduate student fires a charge of electricity into the vacuum chamber, creating plasma in the process.

A few weeks ago I took a trip out to the desert with my lovely wife and my father-in-law, Jim Proffitt. The group that brought us together for this excursion to Shoshone is known as the Desert Explorers. They are a group of mostly older folks who have an immense pool of knowledge and love for the desert.

I found and photographed 11 different species of wildflowers. Alan Romspert is a botany professor at UC Fullerton and helped me identify the species I shot during happy hour in Shoshone. Here are a few of the photos I shot:

Last weekend, despite having a freshly sliced up foot, I shot photos of the NAMM show for WIRED News. The gallery just went live on the front door of WIRED. You can check out the gallery by clicking on the screengrab below: